Star Wars may be the brainchild of Lucas, but Gary Kurtz is what gave it its soul. My theory is that once Kurtz and Lucas split after Empire, the franchise was toast. Kurtz wanted Jedi to be much darker, Lando and the Falcon were to be destroyed during the battle, and no happy teddy bear celebration at the end. In my mind, this would have been a much more powerful film.
If you look at the tone of Jedi, especially the Ewoks, it is easy to see that Lucas was starting to get no critical feedback of his ideas. Kurtz filled this role. Without him, the franchise falls apart and we wind up with the crap that was the prequels. Lucas is a terrible director on his own. Just awful.
This is why I have high hopes for Ep. 7- Lucas is out the door, and Abrams probably understands what Star Wars means to the fans better than Lucas ever did. I just hope that Ford's role isn't too similar to Nemoy's role in Abram's Star Trek movie... a star cameo that helps our protagonist when he needs it most.
IT departments won't go away, but it will be less common for a small or medium sized business to have dedicated IT people, because the services the business relies on will not need full time people.
For example, the onsite maintenance and administration time of Google Apps is much, much lower than using Microsoft Exchange. Google has an army of people maintaining the servers, but the end business doesn't have to incur this cost.
Beyond money and desire- do they have the talent? Startups actually put ads on public transportation and billboards out here trying to recruit developers. In a market where the chances of making it rich at a startup are actually fairly high, it's hard for Yahoo to capture or retain talent in the face of Google, Facebook, or one of the thousands of startups.
I wonder if things would have been different under Microsoft management. Would Microsoft have folded it's better Bing technologies under the better-known Yahoo! Brand? (For example, Bing maps could have been the improved Yahoo maps) Would Microsoft have cut this number of people from Yahoo, or would none of those cuts ever happened?
Eventually, we will just analyze everything that makes us enjoy a sporting event, and the computer will just spit out a game that we will enjoy watching, for sheer entertainment value.
China has come a very, very long way from when they used to only turn out crap. Look around you- most of the things you'll find were at least partially made there.
... why are they not just making the OS free for all? The Hexeh Chromium builds have shown that it can run on a variety of hardware... I don't understand why Google is partnering with device manufacturers instead of just letting this into the wild for everyone...
I think the author is making a very valid point that yes, you'll have greater speed, but you'll have to be very careful with it. I had been considering getting a 4G device to be my main internet connection, but I'd chew through the plan after watching a couple movies on NetFlix.
Verizon is going to have to come up with new pricing plans if they expect people to jump to this sort of tech en masse
-The first time Marty goes back
-When Biff takes the DeLorean from 2015
-When Marty and Doc go back to get the almanac
-While all that is going on, there's also the DeLorean in the cave
The difference being that the precedent with video games is that once you buy it, you own it and you can play it whenever you want- I still break out Riven every now and again just for fun. However, with an MMO, you are kind of gambling that the servers will stay there as long as you want to play the game. It makes it impossible to relive some nostalgia if the servers are not there.
Now, with a little luck, the studio will open source the server software so someone can run it.
The "scam" here is the massive one where America thought the purpose of the market was to provide retirement savings- Thus people dumped all their money into the market in hopes of having big retirement payouts. Look at the surge in the DOW since the 90's- that's everyone's retirements going straight into the market. You know how many people nearing retirement in 2008 and 2009 watched their retirement plans go out the window?
I don't have a solution, and I also have money in the market, but the core purpose of the market has been wildly changed from what it is designed for.
I did IT at an Ad Agency. I remember recommending we upgrade the art guys to 24 inch iMacs. These guys just used Photoshop and Illustrator all day, and the iMacs, at the time around $2K, were the perfect thing for them. When I took this plan to my boss, the final decision maker, he made me go with some crazy Pro setup instead- I think with displays the machines cost about $4K each, just for Photoshop and Illustrator.
Why?
Because they were more expensive, which equaled "better" in his eyes. You can't forget there are a lot of stupid people out there with a lot of money, and just figure that higher cost equals better product... Hell, look at Apple's entire product line- way more expensive than compatible Dell or HP products (though I do agree the Apple is higher quality.)
So when you think about a microtransaction, you think it's a small amount of money. There are two ways for a studio to profit from this: Either they get a wider group of people paying for a game for less money, or they charge so many micropayments to their core users that it winds up netting out the same as if people just bought the game in the first place. In the former, more people get to enjoy the game for free, but if the game doesn't get REALLY widespread acceptance, then they default to the latter, adding more and more micropayments to people that don't realize how much they are spending until they have dropped $100 or more on the game.
Should the latter happen, then the whole idea of micropayments will start to look shady and people will avoid any game that employs the tactic. In other words: It's a slippery slope for all but the most popular games.
This could have been amazing ten years ago... but printers as a technology on the whole seem to be dying out to me. I knew fewer people that have them, as there is very little that needs to be printed anymore.
If Spirit and Opportunity were really worth their salt, the would be on their way down to fix Phoenix... but they are such Divas after all the years of attention, you know THAT will never happen...
Just from a personal point of view, this seems to hold up. I know people in my company that are tremendous producers in whatever they do, but you spend some time with them and realize they are awful people to be around. I can't imagine what it is like to actually live with them.
Look at Steve Jobs- sure, the guy has consistently created some of the best products in tech history, but everything I understand about him is that he is a tyrant to work with- I can only imagine what his homelife is like.
Now, I would like to hear back from someone that is a top producer, like a Steve Jobs, and find out if those people consider themselves happy... in a sense, these people are sacrificing their lives, and possibly the lives of their families, to push us ahead technologically. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
No, but if you are budget-conscious at all (and not everyone is), you do know that the next version will be a bit better, so you weigh if you need to get the current model.
I came into a 1st gen iPod for nearly free when the 3rd gen came out... Then I used that same one until the 80 GB Classic came out. Had I upgraded at every new model, I would have spent more than the $300 total for both units... I just had to "suffer" without the ability to play video for an extra couple of years.
There is obviously going to be some class of device that is part ereader, part computer and part media center, but, just as the smartphone market too years to take shape, the accepted version of this device is still years away, so don't waste your money on an iPad or Kindle just yet... wait for the market to mature.
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Star Wars may be the brainchild of Lucas, but Gary Kurtz is what gave it its soul. My theory is that once Kurtz and Lucas split after Empire, the franchise was toast. Kurtz wanted Jedi to be much darker, Lando and the Falcon were to be destroyed during the battle, and no happy teddy bear celebration at the end. In my mind, this would have been a much more powerful film.
If you look at the tone of Jedi, especially the Ewoks, it is easy to see that Lucas was starting to get no critical feedback of his ideas. Kurtz filled this role. Without him, the franchise falls apart and we wind up with the crap that was the prequels. Lucas is a terrible director on his own. Just awful.
This is why I have high hopes for Ep. 7- Lucas is out the door, and Abrams probably understands what Star Wars means to the fans better than Lucas ever did. I just hope that Ford's role isn't too similar to Nemoy's role in Abram's Star Trek movie... a star cameo that helps our protagonist when he needs it most.
IT departments won't go away, but it will be less common for a small or medium sized business to have dedicated IT people, because the services the business relies on will not need full time people.
For example, the onsite maintenance and administration time of Google Apps is much, much lower than using Microsoft Exchange. Google has an army of people maintaining the servers, but the end business doesn't have to incur this cost.
Beyond money and desire- do they have the talent? Startups actually put ads on public transportation and billboards out here trying to recruit developers. In a market where the chances of making it rich at a startup are actually fairly high, it's hard for Yahoo to capture or retain talent in the face of Google, Facebook, or one of the thousands of startups.
I wonder if things would have been different under Microsoft management. Would Microsoft have folded it's better Bing technologies under the better-known Yahoo! Brand? (For example, Bing maps could have been the improved Yahoo maps) Would Microsoft have cut this number of people from Yahoo, or would none of those cuts ever happened?
Reddit isn't that small anymore- they had two billion pageviews in December.
Eventually, we will just analyze everything that makes us enjoy a sporting event, and the computer will just spit out a game that we will enjoy watching, for sheer entertainment value.
China has come a very, very long way from when they used to only turn out crap. Look around you- most of the things you'll find were at least partially made there.
The speaker grill and printing "iPad 2" on it seems pretty un-apple.
... why are they not just making the OS free for all? The Hexeh Chromium builds have shown that it can run on a variety of hardware... I don't understand why Google is partnering with device manufacturers instead of just letting this into the wild for everyone...
I think the author is making a very valid point that yes, you'll have greater speed, but you'll have to be very careful with it. I had been considering getting a 4G device to be my main internet connection, but I'd chew through the plan after watching a couple movies on NetFlix.
Verizon is going to have to come up with new pricing plans if they expect people to jump to this sort of tech en masse
-The first time Marty goes back -When Biff takes the DeLorean from 2015 -When Marty and Doc go back to get the almanac -While all that is going on, there's also the DeLorean in the cave
This is how Zuckerberg is protesting the new Facebook movie- he's keeping everyone from procrastinating, making them all do work. Bastard.
The difference being that the precedent with video games is that once you buy it, you own it and you can play it whenever you want- I still break out Riven every now and again just for fun. However, with an MMO, you are kind of gambling that the servers will stay there as long as you want to play the game. It makes it impossible to relive some nostalgia if the servers are not there.
Now, with a little luck, the studio will open source the server software so someone can run it.
For half a billion dollars, we could have had half a stealth bomber.
I agree with you -
The "scam" here is the massive one where America thought the purpose of the market was to provide retirement savings- Thus people dumped all their money into the market in hopes of having big retirement payouts. Look at the surge in the DOW since the 90's- that's everyone's retirements going straight into the market. You know how many people nearing retirement in 2008 and 2009 watched their retirement plans go out the window?
I don't have a solution, and I also have money in the market, but the core purpose of the market has been wildly changed from what it is designed for.
I did IT at an Ad Agency. I remember recommending we upgrade the art guys to 24 inch iMacs. These guys just used Photoshop and Illustrator all day, and the iMacs, at the time around $2K, were the perfect thing for them. When I took this plan to my boss, the final decision maker, he made me go with some crazy Pro setup instead- I think with displays the machines cost about $4K each, just for Photoshop and Illustrator.
Why?
Because they were more expensive, which equaled "better" in his eyes. You can't forget there are a lot of stupid people out there with a lot of money, and just figure that higher cost equals better product... Hell, look at Apple's entire product line- way more expensive than compatible Dell or HP products (though I do agree the Apple is higher quality.)
So when you think about a microtransaction, you think it's a small amount of money. There are two ways for a studio to profit from this: Either they get a wider group of people paying for a game for less money, or they charge so many micropayments to their core users that it winds up netting out the same as if people just bought the game in the first place. In the former, more people get to enjoy the game for free, but if the game doesn't get REALLY widespread acceptance, then they default to the latter, adding more and more micropayments to people that don't realize how much they are spending until they have dropped $100 or more on the game.
Should the latter happen, then the whole idea of micropayments will start to look shady and people will avoid any game that employs the tactic. In other words: It's a slippery slope for all but the most popular games.
This could have been amazing ten years ago... but printers as a technology on the whole seem to be dying out to me. I knew fewer people that have them, as there is very little that needs to be printed anymore.
If Spirit and Opportunity were really worth their salt, the would be on their way down to fix Phoenix... but they are such Divas after all the years of attention, you know THAT will never happen...
Just from a personal point of view, this seems to hold up. I know people in my company that are tremendous producers in whatever they do, but you spend some time with them and realize they are awful people to be around. I can't imagine what it is like to actually live with them.
Look at Steve Jobs- sure, the guy has consistently created some of the best products in tech history, but everything I understand about him is that he is a tyrant to work with- I can only imagine what his homelife is like.
Now, I would like to hear back from someone that is a top producer, like a Steve Jobs, and find out if those people consider themselves happy... in a sense, these people are sacrificing their lives, and possibly the lives of their families, to push us ahead technologically. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
I can't hear anything, I was blown. - Tobias Funke
No, but if you are budget-conscious at all (and not everyone is), you do know that the next version will be a bit better, so you weigh if you need to get the current model.
I came into a 1st gen iPod for nearly free when the 3rd gen came out... Then I used that same one until the 80 GB Classic came out. Had I upgraded at every new model, I would have spent more than the $300 total for both units... I just had to "suffer" without the ability to play video for an extra couple of years.
There is obviously going to be some class of device that is part ereader, part computer and part media center, but, just as the smartphone market too years to take shape, the accepted version of this device is still years away, so don't waste your money on an iPad or Kindle just yet... wait for the market to mature.
So now I'll have a strobe light effect every time I check my email!
your sig is incredibly apt for your post...